Here is another example of fake atrocity propaganda. This has been covered in the Holocaust Debate forum but I present it again here in case new readers are not familiar with it. During the first world war the Allies claimed the Germans, Austrians and Bulgarians were gassings Serbs which was reported on with newspaper coverage. As the following article conveys this was just a dress rehearsal for the claim that the Germans were gassing Jews in the second world war - http://codoh.com/library/document/2332/

This was of course muddying the waters of many officials even more. In such a case atrocity stories of course become more believable and they'll repeat them with some authority and hence more credibility to others. That would explain why a lot of people believed stories that were simply NOT true and why they're often repeated even today.

Hektor wrote:....This was of course muddying the waters of many officials even more. In such a case atrocity stories of course become more believable and they'll repeat them with some authority and hence more credibility to others. That would explain why a lot of people believed stories that were simply NOT true and why they're often repeated even today.

Another thing to make an atrocity story more believable is to mix it with some facts (especially a lot of detail will make it sound convincing) and dose the "outrage content" with the right measures. One would have to steadily increase the outrage over time. Immediate inflated claims will be dismissed as false.

Of course it helps to monitor the targeted group for their reactions to atrocity propaganda:

"Early in the re-education of the German people the military government attempted to develop a sense of collective responsibility for results of National Socialism, especially for atrocities in concentration camps. Detailed interviews indicate that, before the Allied occupation, Germans were aware of the existence and function of concentration camps, although they did not know the details or extent. .... During the first months of the occupation, the Psychological Warfare Branch of the United States Army, being charged with the control of public information in Germany, undertook a campaign through Radio Luxembourg, the controlled Germanlanguage press, and special posters and pamphlets to acquaint the German people with the extent and nature of concentration camp atrocities. The development of a sense of collective responsibility was considered a prerequisite to any long-term education of the German people..."https://archive.org/details/MorrisJanow ... Atrocities

This was of course muddying the waters of many officials even more. In such a case atrocity stories of course become more believable and they'll repeat them with some authority and hence more credibility to others. That would explain why a lot of people believed stories that were simply NOT true and why they're often repeated even today.

George Coppard, With A Machine Gun to Cambrai (1969)I feel I must mention a piece of psychological propaganda put about by some War Office person, which brought poor comfort to Tommies. The story swept the world and, being gullible, we in the trenches were taken in by it for a while. With slight variations it indicated that the German war industry was in a bad way, and was short of fats for making glycerine. To overcome the shortage a vast secret factory had been erected in the Black Forest, to which the bodies of dead British soldiers were despatched. The bodies, wired together in bundles, were pitchforked on to conveyor belts and moved into the factory for conversion into fats. War artists got busy, and dreadful scenes were depicted and published in Britain. The effect on me at first was despondency. Death was not enough apparently. The idea of finishing up in a stew pot was bloody awful, but as I had so many immediate problems the story soon lost its evil potency for me.